How good do oilcan delays sound?

[Shea]

Just curious.

[52 Bill]

They have a very specific sound that some people love and some people hate.

They have a very limited delay range, a very limited frequency response and usually have a lot of wow and flutter based upon the mechanical nature of the system.

Think of an analog delay with added tape wow and flutter.

[Shea]

Thanks.

I pulled up some Youtube clips of people demo-ing a few different oilcan delays, and I see what you mean. Interesting, but not very versatile.

[Sweetfinger]

Delay isn't where the oilcan shines. Rotary effects are where it gets groovy with those.

[Shea]

Delay isn't where the oilcan shines. Rotary effects are where it gets groovy with those.

I looked up the schematics for the Fender Dimension IV and the Morley Rotating Wah. Looks like the trick to the rotary effect is that they had two write brushes which wrote on two different spots on the disk/can simultaneously, followed by one read brush. The Morley Rotating Wah also had a feedback loop.